It's relatively easy to figure out how many marriages end in divorce. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 600,000 American couples get divorced every year. What's far less clear is the number of couples that almost get divorced every year but who are still hanging on. Most of us probably know at least one or two couples that have come right up to the brink of a separation but somehow turned it around, though we don't always get to know what really happened behind the scenes that saved the marriage.
And, full disclosure, we hate not knowing what goes on behind the scenes! Maybe we're nosy (let's own it: we're nosy) and maybe we just want to benefit from the lessons other couples had to learn the hard way. Either way, we're super interested in the stories of what brings a marriage to a breaking point and how couples recover from that. Are they happier now? Do they ever wish they had gone through with the divorce? Thankfully, we were able to find 16 women who were willing to share the stories of their "almost divorce" and how they really feel about their marriages today. Given that these are not all stories that have a fairy tale ending, we've agreed to keep their names anonymous in exchange for their brutal honesty.
A Diagnosis That Changed Everything
"We were like 95% divorced (papers filed, he’d moved out) when he was diagnosed with cancer. All of the reasons we were going to get divorced were still valid but he was still the father of my kids, still on my insurance, and I was going to be damned if he was going to have to deal with cancer on his own. We stopped the divorce and he moved back in. Cancer changed everything and we ended up having a whole new perspective on things as we navigated that experience. That was five years ago and I’ll never think cancer was a good thing, but sticking with our marriage turned out to be a great thing."
Too Young
"We got married young. Way too young. I was only 19 and he was 20 and it was so very dumb to get married at that age. We were on the brink of divorce after about a year. We just weren’t mature enough to get married, but who really is at 19? I ended up going on a study abroad trip without him and then he transferred to another college. So we basically separated but didn’t get officially divorced. We moved to the same city after graduation and moved in together and kind of finished growing up together. I still think we were too young to have married and I think we for sure would have divorced if we hadn’t basically separated for almost three years."
After an Affair
"I cheated. He found out. Poop hit the fan, as you would expect. I’d been wanting to get him to go to counseling with me for years and he’s always said things ‘weren’t that bad’ but the affair was a wake-up call that yes, they were that bad. He moved out for a while but agreed to counseling. We fought for our marriage for the next few years and we’re in a good place now."
COVID Problems
"I was ready to call it and tell my husband I wanted a divorce. I even started getting suggestions for a good lawyer and then COVID hit. Once it was clear that COVID wasn’t going to be some quick things, I pumped the brakes. I couldn’t imagine trying to deal with a divorce while homeschooling the kids, working remotely, all that stuff. I’m not sure I’m happier now. I’m not sure divorce isn’t still something that might be in our future. COVID just gave us a different set of problems."
Time Changes Everything
"Like a lot of couples, I think, we hit a real low point when we were dealing with three kids under the age of 7. I felt like we were just roommates. We were solid as a family but wobbly as a couple, if that makes sense. Ultimately, the thing that saved us from divorce (which we did talk about a little) was time. Marriage has ebbs and flows and we just needed to get to the less intense parenting phase to reconnect."
Emotional Affair
"I found out he was having an emotional affair and kicked him out. He moved to an apartment for about two months. I think we would have gotten divorced if I hadn’t been five months pregnant at the time. I ended up agreeing to let him come back partially out of fear of having the baby alone. I’m mostly glad we stuck it out but I’m certain that I would get divorced if I found out he was cheating now."
Mental Health Issues
"We almost got divorced because he wasn’t dealing with his mental health and I was at a breaking point of dealing with the kids almost entirely on my own because his depression was so bad. I gave him an ultimatum: Get help or get an attorney. He chose to get help and went on meds and things have gotten better. Not perfect, but better."
Financially Dependent
"Mine is kind of depressing. I was getting ready to leave him (for lots of reasons, but not an abusive situation, thankfully) and then I lost my job. I’m totally dependent on him financially right now and I feel like I can’t leave until I know I can support myself and the kids. So we’re sticking it out right now but I’m not really happy."
COVID Co-Parenting
"We decided to get divorced in October 2019 but agreed to wait until the summer of 2020 to do it, so our oldest could finish his first year of school without his parents getting a divorce to overshadow the whole thing. Then 2020 happened. And 2021. And we are still here, still co-parenting, still friends. I’m not sure if we are a great example of wedded bliss (whatever that means) but we are two adults who love each other, sharing a house and co-parenting."
For the Kids
"Both of us have parents who were both divorced multiple times and we shared the experience of growing up shuttling back and forth between parents and the drama of new stepparents and half siblings and stepsiblings. When things got tough between us due to some ongoing issues, we mentioned the 'D word,' but we ultimately decided that we owed it to our kids to fight as hard as we could for our marriage. So we did all the things: a marriage retreat, couples counseling, scheduled date nights and sex, etc. I think it worked because we are still together and stronger than we were before."
Tough Love
"A real low point was when we got fired by our couples counselor because we were too argumentative in sessions. Yikes! That got us to go to a different counselor to help us plan for a less bitter divorce. The new counselor had more of a tough love approach that ended up helping us get to the root of some of our stuff in a way the old one didn’t. That was 10 years ago and we are better than ever."
Relationship Transition
"My partner came out as trans 12 years after we got married. It was sort of a shock and I’d sort of suspected it a little. And while I never stopped loving them — they are my person — I did have to think about divorce as I figured out my own identity and if I would still be romantically and sexually attracted to my partner while they transitioned. It was hard and our relationship is different than it was before, we are still really good partners, friends, parents, and occasionally lovers."
No More Hustle
"COVID kind of saved our marriage. We were living in Silicon Valley and were both working insane hours to try to afford living there. We were paying almost $85,000 a year just on rent and child care. We were fighting about money and work/life balance all the time. I think another year and we would have been done. When everything went remote, we moved to the same small town that my brother and his family were living in. It was a revelation. I was able to quit my job and we rented a house that was twice as big as our apartment for $1,000 less a month. We’re staying here and we are doing better financially and are both so much less stressed. And having family nearby means more date nights, which is also good. We could connect more when we weren’t in hustle mode all the time."
Marriage Retreat
"We did a marriage retreat/hiking trip as sort of a last-ditch effort to save our marriage. I thought it would be super cheesy. Parts of it were really cheesy but we also uncovered some underlying things that we’d never talked about before, like his concern about my level of drinking and my worries about our sex life. That weekend didn’t fix us, but it helped us see what we needed to work on to make it work."
Make Our Own Rules
"One thing that got us back from the brink (and we were like five minutes from calling lawyers) was deciding that our marriage didn’t have to look traditional. We could create something that worked for us. So we decided to experiment with non-monogamy as a way to address some on-going sexual conflicts. We didn’t end up loving it, but all the conversations that went into helped us a lot. You have to communicate a lot about boundaries and preferences and desires in that situation and it was good to have that dialogue."
Back on Track
"We separated after several years of just growing apart and constantly snipping at each other. We lived apart for about six months and it was hard but ultimately good for us. When we both realized that we missed the other more than we liked living apart, it helped us get back on track."
